Best entries from the Smithsonian Photo Contest

The famous Smithsonian Institution, located in Washington and having the largest museum collection in the world, publishes a magazine of the same name about the world in all its diversity. For the 14th time in a row, this magazine has been holding a photography contest celebrating the beauty of the planet.

The jury of the international competition announced the names of the winners, having selected the best works from more than 46,000 entries from 168 countries.

First place in the main competition was won by Indonesian photographer Albert Ivan Damanik for his image capturing the eruption of Mount Sinabung (Indonesia) in June last year.

In addition to the Grand Prix, the authors of the best works were determined in seven thematic categories. Thus, in the category "Nature" the winner was the Japanese Hidetoshi Ogata for the photo "Little monkey on a cliff", the work of Tamina-Florentine Zuk "Women's compartment in a suburban train" brought her first place in the category "Nature", and "Rest" by Benedetta Ristori won in the People category. The best mobile photographer of the year was Jian Wang from China.

(Total 9 photos)

Source: dailymail.co.uk

The Grand Prix winning photo was taken by Albert Ivan Damanik in a settlement in North Sumatra, Indonesia in June 2015. Mount Sinabung spewed ash and gas for a week, there was a threat of collapse of the dome of the volcano. The government decided to evacuate people from the danger zone within a radius of 7 kilometers from the eruption.

Photographer Radim Schreiber took this shot of fireflies in the almost complete darkness of a forest.

Category "American experience". Photographer Lauren Pond said: “Forty-six-year-old trucker Ben Blackburn sits at a Bible study lecture at a mobile chapel in Ohio. The priests of this chapel helped Ben find a job during the crisis."

Travel Category Winner. Photographer Tamina-Florentine Zach took this picture in a women's train car in India. “Every day, millions of people travel to Mumbai by train. Almost every train has a separate section for women to protect them from sexual assault.”

Winner in the Mobile Photography category.

Travel category winner. In 2014, UK-based photographer Tikhomir Trichkov took this picture at an orphan school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Mombasa, Kenya. In the frame, the daughter of the director of the school is at recess. The photographer's work helped raise money to complete a school for 150 children and a residential building for 30 orphans.

Photographer Alice van Kempen took this picture on an empty train in Belgium. In the frame of her bull terrier Claire.

Winner in the People category. Photographer Benedetta Ristori took the picture in Japan in January 2015. “This is not a staged photo. I saw this while wandering the streets of Kyoto. I wanted to capture the life of people working at night. Shift work, even at night and on holidays, often has a physical impact on people.”

Speaking about this shot, photographer Hidetoshi Ogata said: “It was cold in Nagano. I saw a small monkey enduring the cold at Jikogudani Monkey Park. She was very nice."